Quotes from Henri Nouwen

The great # conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.

The most important thing I've come to believe in is that people with mental handicaps have a unique mission to bring God's blessing to the World.

To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.

It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.

Take prayer with you wherever you go. Say it anytime, and then focus your mind and heart on God.

Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."

If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend.

We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.

Solitude is an essential element for the spiritual health of a child. If we only stimulate our children - keep them busy with endless stories with no space to be alone - that's not good.

...real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into the gateway to joy.

True Hospitality is welcoming the stranger on her own terms. This kind of hospitality can only be offered by those who've found the center of their lives in their own hearts.

Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.

Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.

Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.

Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.

Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.

The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.

You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.

Which questions guide our lives? Which questions do we make our own? Which questions deserve our undivided and full personal commitment? Finding the right questions is crucial to finding the answers.

When we have sold our identity to the judges of this world, we are bound to become restless, because of a growing need for affirmation and praise.

Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you "the beloved."

Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.